Aleksander Michałowski (17 October 1938) was a Polish pianist, pedagogue and composer who, in addition to his own immense technique, had a profound influence upon the teaching of pianoforte technique, especially in relation to the works of Chopin and J.S. Bach, and left this legacy among a large number of pupils.
Early life and training
Aleksander Michałowski was born in 1851 in Kamianets-Podilskyi in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. From 1867, at the age of 16, he studied at Leipzig Conservatory as a pupil of Ignaz Moscheles, Carl Reinecke and Theodor Coccius. Coccius was his greatest influence, and he was industrious, often practising for 10 hours a day. In 1869 he went to Berlin and studied under Carl Tausig. (Tausig attempted to make him adopt a very high finger position, which nearly ruined his technique.) He moved to Warsaw, where he settled permanently, in 1870.
At about this time he made friends with Karol Mikuli (1821-1897), who had received lessons from Chopin between 1844 and 1848, and was head of the Lviv Conservatory. Mikuli imparted to him many of the composer's own ideas about the performance of his works; Michałowski also met Chopin's gifted pupil Princess Marcelina Czartoryska (née Radziwiłł), who played some mazurkas for him. Moscheles had also been a friend of Chopin's, and therefore Michałowski obtained a rich understanding of Chopin's pianistic thought and performance.
His Chopin style
He was familiar with all Chopin's works, and devoted a lifetime to their study. In performance, he occasionally altered the musical text, and transcribed some in the manner of Moriz Rosenthal. In 1878 he visited Franz Liszt at Weimar, and at first (having connections with the Leipzig Conservatory) was not made welcome, but afterwards made such an impression that Liszt acknowledged his authenticity of performance and approved the variants that he introduced. A later successor at Warsaw Zbigniew Drzewiecki wrote: 'As an interpreter of Chopin he created a certain style of rendering the composer's works which found many imitators. It consisted of the chiselling of swift passages and stressing their elegance in smoothing the edges of sharper expressive climaxes, in lending Chopin's works the air of almost drawing-room sentimentality. And yet this slight sentimentality was always under the strict control of moderation, instrumental purity and good taste.'
Teaching principles
In 1874 he settled in Warsaw and took up teaching, at first privately. From 1891 he became professor of the concert pianists' class at the Warsaw Institute of Music (at that time under the direction of Apolinary Katski), and continued there until 1918, after which he taught at the Fryderyk Chopin Music School of the Warsaw Music Society. He particularly emphasised the importance of contrapuntal playing, and during the first two years of his students' work with him he made them play a lot of J.S. Bach. In the case of one of his most famous pupils, Wanda Landowska, this led to a career dedicated to Bach and to baroque music. Chopin himself had a particular sympathy for Bach, and Michałowski understood that the contrapuntal principles were most important for the understanding of Chopin's work. He also developed the imaginative and bravura aspects of his students' playing. He used much demonstration in his lessons, and encouraged students to imitate aspects of his own performance.
